Yellow Coats
by Mizutaka
Summary: oneshot Above everything else, Riku hates in when it rains, and Sora was always able to understand that. But now, alone and in the rain, Riku's lost and can't help but wonder what's going on.


Yay! A Kingdom Hearts fic! *everyone cheers* Yeah . . . for anyone who's read my other KH fic, Open Up, here's a present to keep you satisfied for a while. Just don't hurt me for being a slow updater! I've been having issues with the third chapter (all they freaking do is walk around! ARG!) . . . anyway, everyone else, please enjoy this because, well, I enjoyed writing it. We should have mutual joy, ne?   
  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own Kingdom Hearts. If I did . . . well, I don't want to think about the insanity that would result from that. Anyway, Disney and Squaresoft own the game. So please don't sue, because I don't have any money to give you. I spent it all on Final Mix. *pets box*   
  
**Story Key:**   
italics = emphasis   
". . ." = speaking   
  
Anyway, onto the fic . . .   
  
  
  
**Yellow Coats**  
  
I hate the rain.  
  
I've always hated it the same way that Sora hates liars and the same way that Kairi always hated to cheat on anything - with a passion that other people question and yet understand at the same time. Though, I hate it for all the reasons that everyone hates rain I suppose.  
  
Because every time I go out in it I have problems with my hair and have to deal with Sora asking why in the world I keep the scraggly mop so long in the first place. Because despite the fact that I live in a place where it rains nearly every week, my immune system doesn't seem to be able to handle it all and I end up with a case of the infamous twenty-four hour flu. Because the sun and all of its cheer has been covered by a blank grey that sticks me in a mood that lashes out, hurting everyone I know, including myself.  
  
It started when I was younger. It was about a week after Sora's tenth birthday when we were both the same age again, Kairi still having a month to go before she joined us in the great leagues of double digits. We were hanging out at Unmei, mock fighting in the sun and having a grand time smashing Wakka and Tidus as we double-teamed against them. At least, it was great until Selphie appeared out of nowhere and somehow got the two of us tangled up in that jump rope of hers, thus giving Sora and me an extremely unfair handicap. Kairi thought it was hilarious as Tidus and Wakka finally managed to beat the crap out of us while we were trying to swing our wooden swords in their general direction and failing miserably.  
  
That day was the day when my mother didn't just go downhill, she plummeted.  
  
To put it lightly, my mother was never particularly healthy throughout her life. It wasn't like her health problems were her own fault either; she didn't have the same opportunity as obese people who can just start eating salads and get better in a year or so. To tell the truth, I'm not really sure what was wrong with her, only that she was weak early in life and after the stress of giving birth to me, it just got worse.  
  
It drove her insane, the fact that she was always ill and confined to the house. She never screamed or cried or acted the slightest bit crazy, but you could see it sparking behind her eyes when she watched life pass her by. Actually, I don't recall her ever leaving the house except for once when I was three or four and she took me to my first summer festival, and even that memory is faded away like an old photograph. The rest of her life she sat in a wooden chair, swaddled in blankets, staring out into the sea and occasionally asking what it was like to feel the sun against your skin or have the water lap at your feet.  
  
She was locked away in a gilded cage.  
  
Some would continue by saying that their mother would tell them wonderful stories of the days before they were born or angst over the mother who faded away into her own silence, learning to tune out the rest of the world as she stared outward. But my mother didn't do anything of the sort. She stared out that window and there were points where she lusted for death because she missed the outside so much, but each day when I said good morning, she would remember that _she was a mother_ and would grant me a warm smile.  
  
The night that it happened I had come home early because the clouds were getting ready to fall and I had no desire to get wet. My mother was acting strange, a strained smile plastered across her face, almost as if she knew that she was finally falling apart and was desperately trying to glue the pieces back together, before she hugged me tightly, whispering sweet nothings in my ear as she shooed me to bed.  
  
That night as I slept, something in her snapped. She left the house for the first time in years, wandering out into the storm like a wraith in white only to be found sprawled lifelessly across the concrete the next morning by fishermen who were up early for the catch.  
  
We held her funeral three days later at an ungodly hour in the morning that spread into the afternoon, and in what seemed like a mockery of her death at the time, the sky shed tears that did not let up for a moment.   
  
Understandably, I didn't handle it well at all.  
  
Two days before I had been thrown into the custody of a woman I hardly knew and already disliked because of her bland attitude. It was of my father's older sister, Asai, who thankfully did not have children because she just couldn't deal with kids. It wasn't that she didn't care about me, but Asai was one of those people who can't handle their own life, let alone anyone else's, so I was shoved in a corner. After dealing with her lack of stability for two days and then going through hours of apologies oozing with false sincerity, I snapped and found myself sitting curled up next to the paopu tree, sobbing my heart out.  
  
A young Sora decked out in an freakishly bright, yellow raincoat was the one who found me there hours later, soaking wet and hot with fever. I don't really know how he got me back to Fate all by himself, or even what happened the next few days, but I do know that that was were it all began. It was born from an immature thought and loss of control, but that was when I started hating rain.  
  
You know, one of the reasons I wanted to leave Destiny Islands was to flee from all of the rain there. It rained all of the time - probably because we were surrounded on all sides by water that could go back to the heavens in an endless cycle of rising and falling. But leaving, that didn't work out too well because it's raining here and I never thought that it could rain here.  
  
But then again, I guess no place can be perfect.  
  
I was struck dumb upon arriving here, and wished that Sora and Kairi could have seen what I saw. There were waterfalls that rose upwards against the sky and floating icebergs that hovered back and forth in some sort of makeshift path and water that couldn't be penetrated but for large bubbles. It was like the crystal wonderland that Kairi had dreamt up when we had talked of different worlds days earlier.  
  
But what truly got to me was when I leaped to the top of those rising falls only to see a giant castle of colorful marble and stone looming in the distance with a grand air that pulled me in. It wasn't the fact that it was so rich looking, it was the fact that was a castle. A real, live castle - just like the ones in fairy tales where kings and queens live and adventures with princess-capturing dragons start. For a moment, life was perfect when I saw this castle that I now stand in, this Hollow Bastion.  
  
Up close the fortress was only more amazing - the actual reality of my dreams playing out before me. Giant staircases clothed richly; a waterway of crystal guarded gates; ledges that if you looked over the edge, you would realize that you stood hundreds of thousands of meters up in the air; and moving platforms that carried you to different places and levels. But it was cold and empty, a shell of a castle where all the magic had gone away.  
  
Then I met Maleficent.  
  
I won't deny that the whole event creeped me out since she's just scary in a way with the greenish skin and horn looking headdress, not to mention her attempts at being motherly. But at the time she just fueled the whole mystic air of the place and that drew me in. For you see, she showed me a magic that was of the same type that led me away from Destiny Islands - a familiar magic that was of buttery eyed creatures en-wreathed in tendrils of purple and black darkness.  
  
The Destiny Islands were a cage surrounded by water. Not a cage like the one my mother lived in, but a cage none the less. That's why I couldn't stay there and that's why I can't help but stay with Maleficent because she is quite possibly the reason why I'm free.  
  
But now, this perfect, wonderful world that I live in has been tinted grey and swallowed up by the glistening sheen of water that coats everything.  
  
It's raining. In fact, I'm standing out in the rain right now.  
  
You know, they say that rain is supposed to wash away your sins like some sort of holy water that drops out of the sky. Then again, 'they' also said that love conquers all. But you know, that doesn't say much for 'them,' because love is only absolute like that in my fairy tales. I loved my mother, and look what happened to her. 'They' must be complete idiots because all I've managed to do in the last hour and a half is get really wet, which, in my opinion, isn't extremely productive at all.  
  
I don't really want to go back inside either, because something tells me that if I do, I'm going to truly realize how miserable I feel physically. In fact I'm pretty sure that I'm delirious with fever, because my fingers feel numb and it's kinda funny to me in a way because I can't feel the water sliding off of them. Yup, let's watch the physical health plummet downward.   
  
Of course, it's all Sora's fault. Then again, for some reason, it usually is.  
  
Maleficent decided to set me loose in Traverse Town, alluding to the fact that Sora was there, so I was out there looking for him earlier today while ogling the area in awe.  
  
Traverse Town was simply amazing in the fact that it was an actual city with a bustling population of more people than I had ever seen before, let alone in one place. The town is packed with people and creatures of all sorts who traveled from their worlds when the darkness came for them, trading items in a multitude of colorful stores that Kairi would have died to see. The sheer diversity of the place is amazing and although most of the stores were boarded up, I would love to go back again and sit in the First District Café, just to watch the people if nothing else.  
  
It was later in the day when I finally found Sora, managing to act all cool and not like the bug-eyed tourist I had been earlier. He was wandering around with that Keyblade thing of his, off on some sort of adventure. It's understandable I suppose; our goal was to have an adventure and get off of Destiny Islands, but we were going to go together. Weren't we?  
  
How could he have such a change in character that he'd abandon Kairi and me like that without a second glance? How could he just and go off and make new friends to have his adventure with and then lie about it? What was the matter with us? We're the ones who have known him his whole life and we're the ones who built that raft with him.  
  
Was this how my mother felt when people stopped visiting her over the years?  
  
Standing out in the rain - I guess this is some moronic attempt of mine to get his attention. Although, I'm starting to think I didn't plan this out too well because Sora has no clue how to get here and Maleficent is probably going to get a kick out of the whole situation.  
  
So, now that Sora has abandoned us, does that mean that Kairi and me are going to have to have our own adventure without him? Somehow, when I think of that, I get a bitter taste in my mouth and the whole thing seems shallow. Worthless maybe; like Sora made the whole idea of an adventure better or something.  
  
Don't get me wrong, I adore Kairi. She's one of the more rough-and-tough, I-can-handle-anything-and-won't-complain girls on the island. Plus, she's an interesting person to talk with because she has this ability to adapt to each new situation that presents itself to her. You never feel like you're saying something stupid around her because she stays on your level. But sometimes, though it's not very often, she's so far ahead of you that you don't even realize it until she says something so bizarre that all _you_ can say is 'huh?' in response before she joins you back down on the ground.  
  
But an adventure with just the two of us? Why does that just sound so wrong? It reminds me of when people start choking and sometimes the only reason that you know something is off is because the catched sound of their breathing. It's unnatural. Just like having our adventure without the third member of our group. It must be my stupid conscience . . . Sora may be able to disregard us completely, but I seem to be having a problem doing the same to him.  
  
I wish I knew where Kairi was; she always knew what to do in situations like this. Maybe it's some motherly instinct or something, but she's always had this ability to fix any degree of quarrel or tiff. Of course, this really isn't some argument - it's Sora being stupid for some reason and me being completely lost as to why.  
  
I'm shivering now, my skin has become an interesting shade of white, and at this rate I'm going to get stuck in bed for a month. Where's Sora with that gaudy, yellow raincoat of his to come pull me out of the storm? He knows how much I hate the rain, so where is he and why hasn't he come to bring me back inside yet?  
  
Maybe he's out in it and hasn't realized that I'm here too.  
  
For some reason unknown to me Sora did always love the rain. I remember when we were little kids Kairi and I would sing that nursery rhyme that pleaded the rain to go away while Sora would grab his coat and go out to skip in the puddles. Of course, not before dragging the two of us outside with him though.  
  
Now that I think about it, what good was that nursery rhyme anyway? The telling the rain to go away part was okay, but what about the coming back line? Who would ever want the rain to come back? I guess we had some sorta fool's hope whenever we sung that song. Like maybe everything would be okay just for then if the rain would go away. Who would care if it came back as long as everything was right for but a moment?  
  
Everyone is always concerned with the present like that, and it's kinda selfish that we think that way. Anything that's messing up the moment we happen to be living in instantly becomes taboo.  
  
That's something that Sora never seemed to conform to though. He's one of those people who take advantage of all of the pitfalls. When life gives him lemons he's the one who'll pull out the juicer and make lemonade. Whether he ever bothers to drink it and find out that it's just as sour is beyond me, but he makes the effort that most people don't. The effort that everyone can't help but find admirable.  
  
But I guess that quality in him has a downside too because when the obstacle of getting separated from Kairi and me arose, he just went with the flow and found replacement friends. So that means that he's just as selfish as everyone else, doesn't it?  
  
I guess he can't come riding in with that coat of his to save us every time. I just wish he would right now. Then I could leave this sodden castle with him; we could go off together to find Kairi so we all could go on our adventure. All three of us - we could visit worlds like Traverse Town and this Hollow Bastion; we could go to a land underwater and a place where the only key to flying is in your dreams. We could all run off just like we had planned.  
  
But Kairi isn't here and Sora's gone.  
  
I think my vice is that I care too much about the people who forget I exist whenever the clouds fall, because Sora and my mother are both the same - they both go running out in the rain, and just look what happens to me when I follow them.   
  
Oh. I've fallen to my knees and now I'm sitting in a shallow puddle, gripping onto the balcony's stone railings with dead fingers. My hair is a complete mess; it's framing the sides of my sight silver and my head's resting against the wet rock, so I'm peering out through the bars and all I can see are the falls. Yet, for some reason none of it seems cold at all.  
  
Maybe this is just another cage after all. How ironic that would be.  
  
"Rain, rain, go away . . . come again another day."  
  
And for a moment, I see a flash of yellow.  
  
**Finite**  
  
  
  
Bwaha! Wasn't that lovely? Riku's all angsty, Kairi isn't there, Maleficent is probably off cackling, and everyone else just doesn't understand. *giggle* But yeah, this fic idea was tormenting me for a while there. It was sitting in the back of my mind being extremely annoying as it screamed, "Write about me! I want to be written about!" Bah - annoying. But I like the result! So, what did you people think about my result? Be good and happy and click on the link below to write me a review because a) You know that you want to, and b) I'll love you forever!  
  
Some notes regarding some of the material in this fic:  
**1.** Take the cage babble and compare Riku to his mother. They both lived in cages per se, and when they both got out they fell, Riku's mother with her death and Riku himself with his consumption of darkness. Speaking of which, I made Riku's mother up. He's rather serious in the game (when he's not being an arrogant moron) so I've assumed that his home life would have to be rather serious too. Hence bad illness, death, etc.  
**2.** Regarding the song "Rain, Rain Go Away." Well, I don't own it. I really don't know who owns it. In fact, that song kinda annoys me and always has. But it's supposed to symbolize that Riku just wants everything to be okay. As it says in the story, it's a fool's hope that everything will be okay, just for now if not forever.  
**3.** Now, about the yellow coat philosophy. What I'm trying to say is that when we're down we look for something bright and, well, happy. Sora fits that description perfectly and his yellow coat is a symbol of that. It sends the rain away because it is a raincoat and it cheers you up because it's yellow.  
**4.** I just want to say that the original closing line was, "And for a moment, I think the sky clears." As you know it didn't work out in the story, but I think it's pretty, so I thought I'd share it with you all. ^_^ 


End file.
